You Need Not Fear Color

Vanity Kills thinks your look might be getting old! Here are some beauty tips on how to change up your makeup.

by Vanity Kills

The words “Goth Girl” conjure up several images in the heads of those unfamiliar with the ins and out of the scene. The above mentioned combination of adjective and noun means the following to your average Joe: spiked collars, black trench coats, and kinky lesbian makeouts at the local fetish night. We tend to roll our eyes at these stereotypes and the more fashionably evolved/culturally savvy of us do not generally reinforce the mainstream’s cliché and outdated idea of us. Admittedly some of us can trace our subcultural identity back to cheesy mallgoth days where Crow makeup and oversized bondage chain addled Tripp pants reigned supreme in our closets. Alas hopefully we evolved past that disastrously experimental portion of our lives and moved on to better and more elegant fashions. If that’s not the case then you’re probably scratching your head trying to figure out why I’m being so harsh when speaking of your beloved Eric Draven facial doodles. If that’s you then you’re not ready. Come back in a few years when you were laughed out of enough clubs and are fed up with people constantly bursting out in laughter the second they view your MySpace galleries. Come when you are introduced to Kleenex and makeup remover. When the student is ready, the master will appear.

For now I will not waste my precious time on you.
So to whom do I speak to today?

At this very moment, I shall address those who feel like they’re stuck in a makeup rut. The nostalgia stricken individuals who had a sudden epiphany in the midst of perusing their 1998 goth club shots. Somewhere between the drunken photos full of Kiss tongues, devil horns, rolled eyes, and double chins it dawned on them that they haven’t changed their makeup in 10 years. Fear not, help is coming. You don’t have to be a slave to Manic Panic’s Goth White Foundation, Vampire Veil Pressed Powder, el cheapo Halloween store brand black lipstick, and drugstore black eyeliner. Matter of factly… step away from them… at once. This is an order. There is life beyond the black liner/black lashes/white face/black lips and alternatively (if you’re feeling extra daring there, cowgirl) black liner/black lashes/white face/red lips combo that you clung onto oh so dearly for so many years. What I’m about to tell you might leave you holding onto your Sisters albums for dear life while shouting “Heresy! Burn her, she’s a witch” in my general direction. So sit down, smoke a clove, and take a breath my dear spooky child.

The truth of the matter is that you can only DO SO MUCH with black without looking just like you did last weekend… and the one before that. Without further ado, what I’m trying to say is that you need not fear color. It does not bite and it is not the devil. Alas tread slowly, for the line between haute couture inspired fabulousness and tranny clown is very thin. Introduce color slowly, learn to blend to the point where you can do it in a moving vehicle after 10 shots of tequila and for the love of all that is holy DO NOT WEAR HOT PINK FROM LASH LINE TO EYEBROW. Alas experiment (10 minutes before the year’s biggest festival is probably not a good time to try a pumpkin orange and Superman blue combo), because not everything works for everyone. Some people pull off pink and blue in that cute Harajuku Candygoth type of way, others look like washed up 80’s pornstars. Your mileage might vary.

Gas Mask Heart Compact – Retro a Go Go
available at www.retroagogo.com . $14
Tough enough for the rivet girl who rolls her eyes at goth chicks who are too “prissy” (It’s all good though, we’ll still steal your man), yet feminine enough for those of us who enjoy a good mix of dainty and industrial strength. Plus there is no excuse for you to carry around a Covergirl compact. We’re no longer in Junior High where drugstore pressed powder compacts, Vanilla Fields perfume, and Bonne Bell lipgloss compose acceptable purse fillers.

Jumbo Pencil in Purple – Sephora Brand
available at www.sephora.com . $5
My seemingly neverending quest to find a purple eye color that DID NOT SUCK was a futile endeavor for a very long time. It began to look like I will sooner find a non-asshole boyfriend than a true purple. That prophecy did not come to pass, since I picked up this pencil at my neighborhood Sephora earlier this year. Ladies, this one is impressive and for a measly five bucks it is too good to pass up. It stands on its own with its slightly shimmering violet hue that draws immediate attention to one’s gaze. However I love layering it under deep violet shades as well as lighter shimmery lilacs in order to give them an extra oomph. If you are a frequent wearer of purple then you will know how hard it can be to make it pop. I’ve come across my fair share of crappily pigmented chalky excuses for purple. I’m glad to report that this Sephora pencil might just be the Messiah of all sucky purple shades. Have a purple shade so completely made of FAIL that you are just about to toss it? Try lining your lower eyelids with the above mentioned pencil and add a coat or two of your purple shadow dud on top of it. You might just bring that sucker back to life.

GLOSS PUR Black – Yves Saint Laurent
available at www.sephora.com . $28
In case you don’t follow the exciting world of high fashion, allow me to fill you in. The runways for the 2008 Fall collections were brimming with models whose lips were decked out in charcoal black. This gloss was created for those who want to capture the spirit of catwalk chic without committing to all out black matte lips, which can be too much for even the most adventurous mainstream fashionistas. And we should care why? Because. If you’re having black lipstick separation anxiety, you can give it new life by adding a coat of this gloss on top of it. Your lips can now match your favorite black vinyl mini dress. An old favorite with a modern update. You really don’t get much more “best of both worlds” than that.

Makeup Forever Lashes
available at www.sephora.com . $14
Feathers, sparkles, and neon colors – OH MY! Drama all the way, baby! You don’t like drama, you say. Why the hell are you in the Goth scene again, I ask. When I say NOBODY at the bar will pass you by when the “windows to your soul” are adorned with a pair of these, I mean it. Every single time I wear faux eyelashes to the club, I can be sure that all eyes will be on me (I mean they are anyway, but I digress). Logic dictates that if you’re going to make googly eyes at hot boys, you should probably stand out from a sea of girls whose lashes sport nothing but two coats of Maybelline’s Great Lash Mascara (Great for the office, but it won’t make your lashes the centerpiece of your face like a pair of these will).see Melanie Beitel wearing Makeup Forever Lashes in Festive Beauty
MegaLiner Liquid Eyeliner in Turquoise – Wet N Wild
available at most drugstores . www.wnwbeauty.com . $3
Ladies, consider this one of my biggest beauty secrets. While I love high end makeup as much as any other fashion snob does, upon scoring a bargain such as this I always feel like I just saw the true face of God. I’ve gotten quite a few compliments on this particular brand and shade of liquid eyeliner. If you do a swatch test of this exact color placed next to a swatch of $14 liner, $28 liner, and $32 liner respectively, you cannot tell the drugstore brand apart from it’s pricier counterparts. It is the epitome of guilt free makeup bag upgrades. It’s under $5 and you can find it in any store that has a Wet N Wild end cap. Metallic blues, greens, and silvers in any of their permutations are the corner stone of cybergoth makeup. A singular line (I leave the thickness up to you) drawn near the lashline is bound to give much needed life to your boring outdated cat eye routine. Paired with gunmetal and silver eyeshadows, it’s sure to give your face some android princess flair. And with all the money you saved you’ll now have the perfect excuse to buy the Plastik Wrap dress that goes with your eyeliner. By the way, when someone asks where you got your eyeliner from, you are hereby given permission to go ahead and tell a bold faced lie: “Oh it was totally limited edition MAC and they so don’t make it anymore.”

Luxury Lipstick Cap – Urban Decay
available at www.sephora.com . $15
If you find the concept of spending $15 on a decorative lipstick cap utterly asinine, consider giving it as a gift (with the upcoming holidays and all) to the “Goth Girl who feels like it is her life’s mission to one up everyone else at the club”. Yeah, we all know one of those. The one who must own everything in the gothest shade of GOTH. Wiping her ass with white toilet paper just won’t do, Raven Nightshade IS her legal name, and why yes, those are REAL fangs. The mock wrought iron cap will look just lovely on her 59th tube of Manic Panic lipstick (she goes through about 20 of them a year). It will be totally darling, in some pathetic sort of way. Steal it back when she’s being a bitch.

Voila! Now that I allowed you to peek into the inner sanctum of my ever expanding makeup case(s), I can’t help but feel slightly like a drug dealer. “Try a little bit of color for a change, it won’t hurt you,” is a phrase that I hear myself saying often. This often progresses to an adventure at the nearest MAC counter followed by a pit stop at Sephora. Before I know it I’m blamed for the credit card rape that follows and am accused of sending people straight to the poor house.

You know what though, that’s okay. I consider it a job well done.

As long as you’re not selling your body in the streets to fund the latest MAC Holiday collection, you should be okay. After all there are much worse addictions you can have.